Helping Gosford City Council Increase Plant Reliability with Sludge Screening

Gosford City Council operates a number of sewage treatment plants, their largest being Kincumber STP that serves approximately 130,000 residents.

Sludge produced in this state of the art treatment plant is anaerobically digested prior to mechanical dewatering. Recently a HUBER Strainpress® was installed to pre-screen the digester feed and remove fibre, fine screenings, plastics and hair that would have accumulated within the digesters, and cause blockages within the digester ancillaries such as heat exchangers and recirculation pumps.

“Standing next to the HUBER Strainpress® it is incredible to see the amount of fine material and hair that is removed. The plant has fine screens at the intake, which operate effectively, but fibrous material passes through these screens. Several skip loads of screenings have already been removed, which otherwise would have been sent to the digesters” says John Koumoukelis, Director of Hydroflux.

HUBER Strainpress® removes fibre and fine material upstream of the bio-solids process train, reducing maintenance costs associated with digester cleaning, increasing reliability and performance. It also ensures that biosolids products used for beneficial reuse are of the highest quality and are free from screenings and rubbish. It can operate on pure primary, secondary sludge or a mixture. It can also be used as pressurised primary sewage screen.